Amber is one of the old-world treasures.

There are many names for it; Baltic Amber, Fossil Resin, Succinite and Resinite. It is generally accepted that it is derived from resin bearing trees that once existed in dense forests that no longer exist. To be clear, it is not tree “sap” but specifically resin. The trees produce it to protect themselves from injuries to itself caused by animals or natural phenomena like lighting and storms. These resins heal the wounds of the tree, keeping it healthy and safe.

Amber is a mixture of hydrocarbons

Composed of several tree resins. Mostly of an extinct Pine genus, or in some areas extinct Hymenaea species. It also has inclusions like plant materials, a volatile oil and succinic acid. It is not formed from tree sap, fluid that circulates through a plant’s vascular system, but from resin, an aromatic, semi-solid substance secreted though the plant’s epithelial cells.

Why is it produced?

It is produced as a protection mechanism to draw off disease and injury caused by insects and fungi, heal over broken branches, or to ward off stress produced by rapid growth. As resins of the ancient forests filled internal fissures in the trees, dripped and oozed down the outer bark, they trapped insects, spiders, annelids and other small organisms, pieces of wood and plant matter, feathers and even hair.

They then began to harden by losing their volatile components, and over time the forests fell and were carried by rivers to coastal regions where they were buried by sediments and became part of the ocean floor, or were re-positioned elsewhere by other geological events.